Mackie LM-3204 SOLO, BALANCE, MUTE/ALT 3–4, IMPORTANT!! Setting Levels with Solo

	U
	3
1 OO	+15
STEREO
	U
	4
2 OO	+15
MONO	SHIFT

AUX

UHI

12k

–15 +15

UMID

2.5k

–12 +12

ULO

GAIN

–15 +15

BALANCE

MUTE

ALT 3-4

SOLO

CHANNEL16 -20

+30dB

GAIN

the red OL light will flash.

This is to be avoided. Overloading a mixer circuit forces the audio signal to clip and seriously distort the sound. When the OL light flashes, it means something is too loud. It could be the level of the unit connected to the LM-3204 input jacks or a device you plugged into the Insert Jack; maybe you have the Gain control turned too high or an extreme amount of EQ (which lifts the gain in certain frequency ranges). You need to find out what is too loud and turn it down until the OL LED no longer lights.

Note: When a channel strip is soloed, both the channel LEDs light steadily to indicate that module’s solo status.

SOLO

A solo function on a mixer allows you to listen to (and on a Mackie mixer, to observe on the meters) any input or combination of inputs without affecting the main or auxiliary outputs of the mixer. In other words, you can push a solo button to check something out just about any time without affecting your recording or sound reinforcement feed.

The Solo switch on each LM-3204 channel strip assigns the stereo signal in that channel to the stereo solo buses. Both the channel –20 LED and OL LED will light steadily to indicate the module’s solo status. The solo signals are tapped off after the Balance control, the Gain control and the EQ circuits, and will be affected by all these settings.

IMPORTANT!! Setting Levels with Solo

On the LM-3204, Solo has another important function.

Each Solo switch also triggers circuitry that disconnects the meters, the Control Room monitors and the Phones from their normal duties and reconnects them all to the output of the solo buses. Not only can you listen to the soloed tracks but you can measure them on the 13-segment main meters.

In fact, this is the recommended way to adjust input levels. As you are initially setting up a stereo pair of inputs, push the Solo button. It doesn’t matter if the channel strip is muted: solo will function on a muted or unmuted track. Now set the input level to the range you want, simply by checking out the main meters.

Lastly, by means of extremely expensive state- of-the-art highly obfuscated envelope-pushing silicon technology, any Solo switch on the board

will also light that pulsating flambeau, that impudent alarm, that ruby pharos guarding the Mackie shore, the Rude Solo Light.

MUTE/ALT 3–4

Next up is the Mute switch, which lives up to its name by muting its channel strip. When the Mute switch is depressed, the signal in that input module is removed from the main Left/Right buses and from any selected Auxiliary buses.

Even though the channel is muted, there

can still be audio within the input module. The –20 and OL lights will light, signal will still be available at the Insert jack (channels 1–4), and the channel Solo function will still work. In regard to the main and auxiliary outputs, though, the channel is effectively turned off. But there is a twist.

IMPORTANT: Any and all muted channels are routed to an additional pair of stereo out- puts, called the Alt 3–4 outputs. If you have nothing connected to Alt 3–4 outputs, the Mute switch is simply a Mute switch. If you use Alt 3–4, then the Mute switch acts like an assignment button, switching the signal between two sets of stereo output buses: the Main L–R and the Alt 3–4 buses. This feature is fraught with potential. What appeared at first as a two-bus mixer now is revealed to be, for many purposes, a four-busmixer. Yow!

BALANCE

What looks like a pan pot, acts like a pan pot but is not a pan pot? It’s a Balance control! With a stereo input module, you are no longer dealing with a mono signal to pan from left to right. Instead, you have a stereo signal already spread across the soundstage, and you may have to only tweak the balance between the two channels a bit.

That’s what the Balance control on the LM-3204 does. It’s identical to the balance control on your Aunt Agatha’s Unrealistic hi-fi receiver. There is a detent at the top, where the balance is even. As you shift the control from one side to the other, the stereo balance changes, with the extremes being left channel only or right channel only.

Note: It is possible to use a channel strip on the LM-3204 as a mono input by plugging a cord only into the Left (MONO) input. In this case, the mono signal is applied equally to both of the stereo signal paths. In this mode, the Balance control acts just like a pan pot, automatically! What a world we live in.